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Josh wrote in, asking for help in finding a good tool storage combo in the 40-46″ range for $700-800 max. So, figure a maximum budget of $800.

He was very interested in the new Craftsman red & black tool storage combo, but it’s temporarily unavailable online (our Craftsman contact says this is only temporary and due to low stock), and he can’t find it at any local Sears either.

A big drawer for cordless power tools, including a drill, small impact driver, impact wrench, reciprocating saw, LED worklight, grinder, and a battery (or two)

I’m a little stumped here.

There’s a nice mid-heavy-duty Dewalt combo that is solidly built, but the price is over $1000 the last I checked.

Josh gave me the impression that the storage combo will be for business use, which means it should ideally be up to the task.

I’m not drawing a blank, but I’m not sure which direction would be best to steer Josh towards. If Milwaukee offered a 46″ combo with black color scheme, instead of red, that would be a good choice. But from our discussion, Josh isn’t a fan of how the all-red Milwaukee box looks.

Which plain-looking mid-sized tool storage combo – a chest and bottom cabinet – would you recommend to Josh?

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Mine is blue one, but he wanted subtle. The benefits of the latching drawers far outweigh those of “soft-close” drawers, which IMHO are a PITA/”gimmicky” and prone to failure. The thickness of the sheetmetal may not be that of a high-end Homak chest, but was far better than chests I was looking at this holiday season at Sears, HD, and Lowes. The paint job was flawless on the units I purchased, excellent gas struts on the top chest, premium casters, tubular locks, and double ball-bearing drawer slides on the larger lower drawers (and I believe the socket drawer) were all selling points when comparing comparable Craftsman, Milwaukee, DeWalt, Husky, and Harbor Freight chests. I also preferred the design of the hood on the top chest of the combo to those of the aforementioned competitors; can accommodate battery chargers just as equally, without wasting valuable tool storage space.

No doubt, others will suggest the HF chests which have a real place in this market for the budget-minded.

The Masterforce set was $818.00 on sale mid-November (when I pulled the trigger), and was sub-$800 (I believe $798.00) the week before Christmas.

Happy I purchased, would do it again, and highly recommend these chests.

I came to recommend the Masterforce combos. I, personally, have a 46″ cabinet with an 18″ side box that doubles as a workbench. I’m very impressed with it. I know a few others that have a few different sizes of their combos and they like them. I worked out of a family member’s 46″ combo with two 18″ side boxes hanging off of each side last summer and I was very impressed with it.

The wood top models show up at $319 for 46″ and $449 for 52″ in CT.
52″ with adjustable height is $348.
Cabinets are a bit more expensive, but a 52″ model Model# HTC5206 HMT5212 is marked down to $498 from $698.
The textured black looks sexy as hell, but that’s full price.

I’m sure we’d all be interested how the stack up against others. The wheels look different and the magnetic bracket to hold the power strip is an interesting. Otherwise looks like that shared design by wen or whomever that W brand is. Though they all put their own tweaks into it.

I have a similar request for a recommendation. I’m considering putting a 41″ chest in my office for storage. Office furniture, in general, is either abysmally cheap and ugly or off the charts expensive and trendy. And…it hardly ever serves the function. Hence, the idea of using a really nice tool chest. Drawers need to work well and styling needs to be a slight step up from utilitarian. Ideas?

i’ll throw in a word for costco here. they have an array of varied options. you might consider one of their stainless steel options for your office. the drawer walls felt a bit thin to me on the floor model whose tires i kicked but if you are using it for office supplies that shouldn’t be a concern. the price is certainly good AND its stainless (no, i have idea what “rubberwood” is either.)

It lacks the power tool drawer, but offers more smaller drawers, which might actually be better for storing various small power tools. If the laptop drawer/work surface is a must have/really wanna have, I’d say wait it out and get the Craftsman black/red unit when it’s back in stock. They likely ran low due to holiday gift buying, and the next units will probably be sticking around until the spring.

In the meantime, he could buy discounted Sears gift cards to save more money, sometimes ebay has them for 10% off so he could stack that plus a sale price with whatever $$$ off coupon Sears.com has that works with tool storage and get the unit for well under whatever the budget was.

I’m not sure the black/red unit is up to business use though, it seems more of a DIY-grade unit for the garage like the Milwaukee/Dewalt/Porter Cable boxes. I suppose it will do the job if it’s not abused or overloaded.

Well since not milwaukee… I would recommend (Same as Rob but a little different one) husky 52 In. X 20 In. 15 drawer Chest and cabinet. My company has one of these and are really dependable and built real tough. I would recommend the Milwaukee one because I own one and are real cool. but since it’s not your color go for husky seems to be their best built tool. And their on sale.

if the price was right – and the color wasn’t – would painting one be so bad?

I mean if new and unmolested – it’s got a good foundation on there – just spray paint over it with a quality system – maybe test the back first. sure it will eventually scratch off, etc and the red or yellow or whatever might show – but you could always touch it back up.

A professional location equipped powder coat “painting” company might not find it too difficult to recoat anybofvthese chests.
I’ve had it done repeatedly and it seems like a really reasonable expense. And nearly any PMS color is doable.

I concur with the Harbor Freight (U.S. General) 44″ suggestion. For around $600, he gets a 40-41″ combination (the 44″ measurement seems to include the handle) combination that’s build with a thicker gauge of steel and better overall build quality than Craftsman, Husky, Kobalt, and most other brands found in common retailers. Do your own QA/QC check on the actual piece being purchased, and you have $100-$200 left to burn.

If the red isn’t subtle enough, it’ll more than cover the cost of a quick and relatively easy sand-and-spray job. The metallic finish drawer grips stay on with no issue, but are easily removed by sliding them off for repainting. As a Texas Longhorns fan, I’m planning on repainting mine burnt orange as soon as my order of said paint arrives.

If Josh isn’t up for repainting a new combination set, the savings would likely cover most or even all of the cost of a pro job.

I would buy this one. I just did and like it a lot. it has two 4 outlet, two usb power strips. Magnetic back to the top section. self closing drawers so tools shift less. The casters are heavy duty moldon cast iron. The casters also have better locks with a good indicator that you can see standing up. I don’t like the secondary drawer with a separate lock, but that is just a preference for the least available keys.

I bought two of these as well, and highly recommend them . Heavy duty. good slides, good casters, big work surface and over 400 pounds. I often will make decisions on tools like this by weight. heavier is better.

I agree. I have the slightly older Husky 41-inch combo and it has served me well. It’s held up to regular use and a couple moves. The top area has been a good place to keep battery chargers and power tools, and the drawers are laid out pretty well. Considering I paid almost as much back then for this new 52 inch version, with the pretty paint and the soft close drawers… I may have groaned (a lot) when I first saw it in the store a couple months ago. By far it’s the best-bang-for-the-buck I’ve found I can go put my hands on, load up, and set up in a single afternoon.

I also second the Husky. The Husky textured line is really good. They are on par with the Milwaukee. There are a 52″ and 56″. For the price point (under $1000) I think the Milwaukee and Textured Husky have everyone beat.

I’ll add in for Harbor Freight too. I’ve had one for 8 years. I really like the drawer pull latch, slides are great with or without weight, and the paint ha been fine. If you seriously want value you’re doing yourself a huge disservice if you don’t at least try some in the store.

If you’re really too vain to have the name in your garage, just take the the name badge off

I don’t understand what direction Lowe’s is trying to go in with tools anymore. The closest one to me just redid their tool section in the front of the store and most of their tool storage is gone. There’s one aisle for portable/soft storage (which is a mess), and half of one side of a short aisle for hard storage. There’s, I believe, three different 22-inch-ish combos there, on the cheap end of the spectrum. And that’s it. If I’m going to spend $800 dollars on something I have to touch it first. So if Lowe’s is even carrying anything that big anymore, as far as I’m concerned… they really don’t.

Must be store to store – I don’t know where you live but we have 2 that are much bigger than the others and they have some 2-3 rows of various tool boxes and the like. Some in SS some in black. I don’t recall there being anything as big as a 60 incher but maybe so. I’ve had mine for some 10 years now so I don’t really look at them often – but I might need to browse again.

I’d say if this is the tool box you wanted, just wait for it. I actually really liked this box myself when I looked at it in the store. It was probably a combination of the color, soft close drawers and just the layout. It was the right height for me as well which is always something to take into consideration. For the tools I have and my use, I thought it would be perfect. Though the drawer handle ends really needed capped off if I recall. I have a really nice Waterloo box though so I don’t need a new one just yet. Others mentioned the Husky and that would be my go to behind Craftsman or Waterloo. A friend has one of the black textured ones and it’s very nice!

Meh, a nicely maintained used pro box on CL is worth a look. Lots of options in that $800 price range, I always recommend people look for used first – unless they are dead set on new. Boxes are like cars imo, buy a new econo subcompact for the same as a used highline luxo-barg, you get much more for your $$$.

I concurred with the Harbor Freight suggestion, but you’re right: $700-$800 could potentially buy a terrific box craigslist. Kennedy comes to mind, but not the Snap-On/MAC regrets. Those go for more than twice the budget in question.

Truth be told, if one knows to check out the important parts, tools are probably the best value to buy used on craigslist.

CL is usually where I would look first too. However CL isn’t what it used to be. I don’t know where you guys live but where I am in Dallas I haven’t seen any good options for a $700-$800 use tool chest. They are either a whole lot more or decent box/build like a tank, but have no caster and definitely need a good amount of work to get them up to where they need to be.

Where I can walk into a big box store get a very decent box for $700-$800. They actually have very very decent box for that price point now that isn’t build like a tank but enough that will last me a lifetime at the very least. Most importantly it is something that I can immediately put to use.

I have the Costco (Kirkland) branded 42″ box and it has held up very well. It has a black crinkle coat paint that stands up to my abuse. Latching drawers and a 2500lb weight limit. I got mine for $550 but used my rebate check to off set a bunch of the cost. Currently, the box isn’t on their website but type in Costco 42″ tool chest into your favorite google search and you’ll see what it’s all about. My local Costco has them in stock currently.

I believe the box is manufactured by Torin and just rebranded for Costco, but I could be wrong.

I like that one as well but am bummed about there not being a power strip included. Do you think that I could drill a hole in the back to run a cord into the box? Or would that jeopardize the stability of the box?

No help here but just throwing in an observation. Lowe’s Kobalt is now carrying a line made by SPG International, that was branded up until 2016 as Craftsman Premium Heavy Duty. Drawer arrangement is a little differnt but same box, same grip latch, same drawer trim, et al.

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